Strange Bird
by rjdaae
Summary: After surviving against all the odds, a lonely wanderer is carried by a strange creature into an even stranger world, and, unexpectedly, finds his way home. (Pre-Leroux era. AU taken to the extreme. Winner of LittleLongHairedOutlaw's AU contest.)
1. Chapter 1

AN: So it's been, uhhhh, five years since I posted anything here. (I've still been writing, it just hasn't been in a format that would translate easily to FFN.) But I am BACK with a new short, multi-part story! It's actually an idea that I first had in 2013, but I was never quite sure what to do with it until now. But then LittleLongHairedOutlaw decided to hold an AU contest, and that gave me the kick of inspiration I needed to finally get this thing written! (ETA: This story was chosen as the contest winner!) You should know upfront that it is _the_ most unconventional AU that I have ever devised-but you'll have to read the story to find out why. I would very much appreciate hearing your thoughts! Now, enjoy!

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'Strange Bird'

1.

I have tried to remember the time before; to make sense of how I came to be _here_ instead of _there_.

My eyes close to yellow slits as I let the pictures and sensations flicker through my head, flashes of a half-forgotten life: the warmth of the afternoon sun shining through the boughs of a pine; the ground, cool with shadow and soft with the rot of dead leaves; the whip of twigs flying free after having been bent back by my passage; the rustlings of a hundred small creatures seeking the safety of their dens, and their mingled scents of life and death and fear and relief.

Yet, try as I might, I cannot recall the circumstances that led me to venture into the cave.

I knew well the dangers of those dark places. The threat of them was evident from their very entrances: wicked maws of stone, bared jaws that dripped with countless glistening fangs; how many hapless creatures had been swallowed by those hidden earth-mouths? Those who ventured inside might well make their way back out again safely, but for every successful return there were a dozen more who never again saw daylight: pinned in ever-narrowing tunnels that seemed to twine and twist like the constricting coils of a snake; choked by foul air with the taste of crushed eggs and the consistency of bog muck; tumbling into hidden fissures that plunged underfoot like claw-sharp cliffs, to be swept away by underground rivers as black and cold as a storm-flood on a moonless night. One lucky enough to be caught within earshot of the surface would profit nothing but the privilege of having company in their demise: the distressed cries would draw others down after them—some to search, some to feast, but all equally doomed within the belly of the great, gluttonous monster.

Focusing back on that day, that moment, I can still feel the chill of the stone beneath my feet, the way the walls brushed damp and rough against my sides as the passage narrowed around me. I remember feeling afraid, though whether of the cave itself or of something more immediate I cannot say for certain. My heartbeat had echoed in my head; in my throat; in the air that grew staler, closer, with every step as I felt my way farther into the dark. Perhaps I had been chased, run to ground by some foe more persistent even than my fear of the caves, pressing me to wager my life in hopes of winning it.

Perhaps, though, the fear I recall had merely been the final, reflexive survival impulse of an animal that has already resigned itself to die; the futile gasp of one whose lungs are already full of water. There is a constant that runs through my tattered memories, the very frame of the life I led before, one empty moment jointed to the next like the flesh-less bones of a spine: a sense of loneliness; a sense of endless, fruitless _searching_. Even in those days, the world had been changing. Perhaps I had been completely, truly alone; perhaps the creature that I was when crawled into the cave that day had finally made peace with that fact. Nature has never had much sympathy for her failed experiments. What better could an obsolete and solitary thing hope for than a painless sleeping-death in some dark and peaceful hole?

It doesn't matter now how I got there, no more than it did then: as I reached the end of the tunnel, my body twisting within the narrow cavity of unyielding stone, I knew that I had carried myself to the place where my bones would lie. My mouth fell open, fighting for each breath as the thickened air dug its cloying claws into the depths of my lungs; as my mind was prised free, fading thoughts siphoned off to melt into the painless shadows, I felt almost grateful.

Never would any hope of _awakening_ have crossed my mind.


	2. Chapter 2

2.

Thunder rumbled somewhere not too far away; I sighed, reluctant to stir from the depths of slumber.

My jaws smacked groggily, mouth dry with sleep and sand, and I caught the silky scent of water; idly, I wondered how long it would take the rain to reach me. Sooner than the sun, perhaps: even through closed eyelids, I could tell that night still hung over the world as a hunter over its kill, dawn skulking in the distance like the lowliest of scavengers.

Another low roar echoed through the still air, close enough this time that I could feel the ground tremble beneath me. A scattering of small hailstones bounced against my sleep-sore bones, and a sound of displeasure grumbled through my chest. Surely, this was my just reward for not having sought shelter at the first sign of a storm; for having so foolishly chosen to sleep out in the open in the first place.

I rolled slowly onto my side, my eyes gritty as I blinked in the pitch dark, and heaved myself to my feet—succeeding only in knocking my head and shoulders soundly against a low, hard ceiling. I lurched once more to the ground, lights dancing before my eyes. Then, the very air seemed to explode around me.

**_BOOM...!_**

My heart rattled in my chest, its frantic rhythm driving me to my feet again. The sound was everywhere—and everywhere that it wasn't, there was _rock_. The memory of the night before poured over me, like the rain of sharp pebbles—_not hailstones at all!_—that pelted my back. I collapsed, crippled by a horror formed of equal parts utter bewilderment and sickened comprehension. Dust clogged my eyes and mouth and nostrils as I scrabbled in unthinking circles in the sediment of the cave floor, my terror erupting in a throat-burning rush of noise and bile. It was a sound that I had never made before in my life: the shameless, mindless scream of prey with a claw buried in its gut.

Even as my surroundings settled once more into quiet stillness, the horrific, rock-shattering _boom_ echoed in the persistent pounding of my pulse. It could only have been the roar of the cave-beast itself. I had never heard such a sound; had never imagined that an even greater and unknown terror might lurk in those tunnels. I lay panting in the dirt, too weak to rise—and terrified that my movement might trigger a further barrage. A few inches in front of my face a wall stood entirely invisible in the darkness, and I took note of my breath as it reflected warmly back from the stone; the thick, merciful miasma of earlier was gone.

I could feel a fresh wail rising up in my throat, and clenched my jaw to quash it, driven by an instinct that had protected me my entire life: to cry out in weakness was to bring death upon oneself. Yet, rather than being silenced, the sound only shredded itself into gaunter slices as it threaded its way between my teeth: my very bones ached with the anguished _noise_ of it—the thin, reedy whine scarcely identifiable as mine.

When a second cry squeezed its way into the narrow passage, sounding more alien still, I half convinced myself that it, too, must have come from my own throat.

But then—there! The call came again, slightly closer now; if I made any sound myself, it was no louder than my breath as I lay silently listening.

It was only a short call, repeated—but even with its clipped nature, there was something melodic in its tone. It was different from any voice I had ever heard, and my fear was forgotten as the cry once more stirred the still air. Though far deeper in timbre than my own voice, this was not the gruff roar of a tooth-killer, nor the hoarse blustering of the hulking leaf-chewer whom he stalked. Each syllable had a fascinating smoothness, like slow, clear water flowing over rocks—but underlain with the warmth of a summer stone; I strained toward the sound, like a vine growing toward the sun.

My answering cry clattered against the walls of my trap, nearly drowning out the approaching scuffle of footsteps:

_I am here! Find me!_


	3. Chapter 3

3.

Had I lain in that darkness for all my days, I could not have been any more dazzled by the light that suddenly flooded the narrow passage. I twisted toward it, bewildered, wondering if the earth above my chamber had somehow been suddenly ripped away—but I could discern nothing beyond _brightness_, my sensitive eyes unable to adjust to the sudden shift. This was not the delicate light of a hoped-for dawn: there was something altogether too intense about it, like the blinding streak of lighting across a dark sky. Suspicion rumbled in my throat at the realization that it was also _moving_, bobbing ever-closer, like the uncanny lights that sometimes danced over bogs.

But then the voice reached out to me again, a soft rustle of sound carried on a breath that I could nearly _feel._ My snarl faded. I whimpered.

The light changed, dimmed. Suddenly, I could see again—yet I wondered whether I could trust my eyes.

The creature that crouched beside me was utterly alien. Like myself, it balanced on two legs, but there the similarities ended. Round, blue eyes gazed down at me from a face that, other than the narrow, stem-like nose, appeared impossibly flat. The tiny mouth was obscured by unusual, bushy feathers, which continued around the top of its head in a kind of crest; its neck, in contrast, was left bare, like a carrion-picker. The arms were oddly elongated, dangling nearly to its knees, ending in hands possessed of too many fingers and not enough claws. The legs seemed to lack ankles, the feet small and blunt: toeless, and shining weirdly in the unnatural light. Despite the feathers on its head, the rest of the shallow-chested body appeared armored: covered in a thick, smooth skin that crinkled around its bent joints. As the thing shifted, I noted that it was entirely without a tail.

I flinched as an unexpected hand brushed along the back of my neck, smoothing hackles left rumpled by my panicked writhings; the touch was soft and warm, and, despite my uneasiness, I quickly found myself leaning into it. This creature was not my kind—but did I even know what my kind _was_ anymore, after a life spent so alone? I had traced the trails of claw-toed footprints, straining to hear the faintest echo of the song that played inside my head; where I had searched for harmony, I had found only noises of suspicion and spite—stinging claws that left scars on a hide starved for a gentle touch. The newcomer continued to nicker in its rich, sweet voice, and my fatigue-stricken body sank with a sigh as I let myself be preened by the oddly-blunted fingers, my eyes slitting closed against the dim, eerie light.

I could have fallen asleep, had my new companion not shifted away, gravel crunching under the soles of its feet. Weakly, I lifted my chin from the floor: _his_ feet, I determined, drawing air deep into my lungs. It was the single comprehensible detail that I was able to extract from the jumbled tumult of scent that surrounded him. He smelled of water, and burnt forests, and fall-wood; of sun-dried dead-skins, and thickened blood, and something acrid that turned my stomach—and some new sweetness that tasted the same way his voice sounded.

He began to paw at his own arms, and a frail sound of alarm left me as I watched him start peeling the thick skin from his upper half. Yet he showed no sign of pain, his arms suddenly covered in the same smooth, bare skin as his neck. As he stooped towards me with the shed skin clutched in front of him, its scent told me that, while it was _skin_, it was not actually a part of him at all. But it was _warm_, and I put up no struggle as he wrapped the covering around my exhausted body.

With a huff, his frame suddenly seemed to uncurl itself, springing upward to an unexpected height—hoisting me along with him. A weak yelp left me as I watched the floor fall away, a belated chill of uncertainty shivering through me. I had no idea where he would take me: whether he meant to shelter me or to kill me; whether he even knew the way out the cave himself, or was, like me, yet another doomed captive of the underground. Most of all, as he began walking, following the light that shone out in front of us as if under his command, I wondered if anything would ever make sense again.


	4. Chapter 4

4.

It was well known that caves could have multiple openings: that, were one lucky enough to find their way out again, they might also find themselves in a different place than where they first entered. I have been able to think of no other explanation for the bizarre world into which we emerged.

My first impression was one only of sound—the unbelievable, unbearable cacophony of it. As we left the darkness, the tailless-creature had folded me close in his arms, wrapping the dead-skin to cover me completely; I could see nothing, and the smells of the new place were easily dampened by the rich stench of the hide pressed against my nostrils, but it hadn't been enough to muffle the jarring clash of innumerable unidentifiable noises. Bangs and thuds rang out around us, the crashes of things that I couldn't begin to fathom, and _voices_—voices to drown out the vastest herd. I wriggled against my deliverer's chest, my head darting in an attempt to take them in—to pick them apart and make sense of them, the way I might do to an unfamiliar piece of prey—but he held me with a grip that I was too weak to dispute.

After a time, he slowed his steps. His breath grew uneven as he scaled what seemed to be a small hill, and then finally came to a stop. He shifted me in his arms, and I was intrigued by a bright, musical rattling. Then there was a creak, like a tree bending in a storm—and the dead-skin was pulled from over my head.

The overwhelming scent of the tailless-thing flooded over me, and only the realisation that this must be his den held me back from panic: it seemed that I had escaped one cave only to end up in another—this time, one built of bewilderment rather than stone. We were in a small chamber, with walls that bent at impossibly-sharp angles, and a pervasive smell of fall-wood. Weird assemblages of sticks were scattered around the den, and what looked like more thin hides hung from the walls. A hollow off to one side held a fire, which blazed but showed no sign of spreading, filling the small space with its light. Everywhere, there were things that I had no name for, no conception of—even _colours_ that I had never before seen.

My skin prickled anxiously as I was carried closer to the fire, but my bearer only laid me on the warm ground in front of it, the dead-skin arranged to shield me from the heat. A sort of hollow stone was held to my mouth, and I found that it contained water, resembling a melt-pool; it tasted foul, like the bitter smell that clung to the no-tail, but I drank deeply. Next, he brought me food: a flavourless, spongy substance, wrapped in a brown shell that crackled between my teeth—unsatisfying, but a welcome addition to my empty stomach.

My companion seemed to consider something for a moment, and I watched him curiously. Bending, he removed the shiny shells from his feet, the same way he had sloughed the skin I was wrapped in; I was somewhat relieved to find that he did in fact have toes underneath. Seeming to notice my gaze, he murmured something in my direction. Then, moving to the far corner of the space, he lifted a hand to tap at a recessed area in the wall; I was surprised to see it suddenly open into another chamber. Again, he made a noise—this time, not to me.

A second no-tail appeared, wrapped in even stranger, longer coverings than the first. Had the creatures not carried themselves in such a painfully upright posture, I supposed that this one would hardly have been any larger than myself. Not seeming to notice me, it reached out for the tall one's hand, blinking up at him, and I took the opportunity to observe it from my spot on the floor. Where the other had made my nostrils twitch with the acrid scents of unknown things, the small one smelled only of _den_—of warmth, and sleep, and nesting. Its—_her_—feathers were different, as well: tumbling down her back, glowing in the firelight as soft and pale as chick's-down. But her eyes were the same clear blue as the tall one's.

I realized instantly that she was his daughter; had I not, I could have guessed it in the next moment when she opened her mouth: finally catching sight of me from across the chamber, the small one gave a bright cry, and the sound was like the song of a brook, her voice carrying the same musical quality of her father's.

A frisson ran down my back, raising the feathers along my spine; I thought suddenly of the colossal sky-snatchers, and their habit of carrying still-living prey home to their nestlings. Still, as I glanced back and forth between the little family, I found myself entranced.


	5. Chapter 5

5.

A delicious warmth surrounded me when I woke the next morning, brushing softly against the bare skin of my feet as I shifted, still half-asleep. A soft crackling sound filtered into my consciousness then, and I snapped instantly to attention.

_FIRE!_

My eyes flew open, my leg muscles already bunching to launch me away from the direction of the blaze—my panic only grew as I fell flat on my face and realized that I was bound, ensnared by some coiled thing that pinned my ankles together. _A SNAKE? _The air erupted with the sound of my panicked screeching, my toe and finger claws scraping noisily as I thrashed upon the fall-wood that made up the floor.

I was brought back to my senses by a surprisingly loud shout from the small no-tail. Memories of the previous day flooded back: the tunnel; falling asleep; being woken by the roaring of the cave-beast; being brought to this strange, warm den. I sprawled on my side, wide-eyed and panting, staring blindly across the selfsame den at the little no-tail. She stared back, holding my gaze with all the boldness of the largest tooth-killer.

For a long time, she appeared to consider me, observing me without approaching. Once or twice, she seemed intent on taking a step nearer, her little feet shifting restlessly on the floor, but she never did. After awhile, she sat down on the floor, pulling her knees up against her chest and continuing to watch me. And so we stayed until her father reappeared, returning through the same opening that I had been carried through the night before; this time, he smelled of meat.

The tall one glanced first at his girl-chick and then at me, and I gave a weak wriggle against my bonds; I had found my ankles to be wrapped by some unnatural sort of vine, cold and hard with a taste that reminded me of stale blood. His face crinkled in that odd way of no-tails, and he came nearer, crouching an arm's length away from me; after watching me carefully for a moment, he extended a hand. Remembering the gentle way that those soft fingers had petted me before, I resisted the impulse to snap at him; I was rewarded with the no-tail's soft cooing as he smoothed my disordered, tawny feathers.

He brought me more water after that, and fed me slivers of a peculiar meat that he pulled from inside his coverings—crimson, yet bloodless. I ate as though I had only just remembered how to be hungry.

The fastenings were not removed from my legs that day, nor for many days after. Nor was the small one allowed to come near (I noticed that her father would tug her back by the arm if she ever made a step towards me, and her earlier behavior suddenly made sense). But one thing did happen that would matter more than anything else. After the two had eaten their own meal, glancing often at me where I lay in my nest of warm dead-skin, the tall one had taken up an object that, so inexplicable was its form, only by scent was I able to identify it as a piece of fall-wood. I stared curiously as he lifted it to his shoulder, grasping a stick in his other hand that smelled of pine sap; such a bizarre set of actions I had never witnessed, and could not begin to comprehend.

_But then!_

So long had I listened, so far had I roamed, I had believed that all the music of the world was known to me. The melodies of the wind and water. The bright, piping tunes of the little glide-tooths and flap-wings, and the whistles and chirps of the squeak-softs in their burrows. More than any, certainly, the calls of my fellow claw-hunters—their choruses intriguing yet empty, like a bone without marrow. The song of the no-tails and their string-wood was something altogether different—altogether more wonderful than any or all of the others combined.

That night, as I listened, I was still too weak to do more than lift my head from my nest; still too uncertain of the nature of my situation to contemplate the things that seemed to whisper to me from that music. Yet, out of the blue, I was content.


	6. Chapter 6

AN: This chapter is my favourite.

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6.

Every morning, the tall one would bring some meat for me, then leave; the small one would wander around the den until he returned, usually smelling of the cave; I would be fed again; they would sing together; the chamber would darken, and I would once more be left alone until morning. I watched the moon shift, my eyes following the path its beams charted as they shone through the hole in the opposite wall, and I knew that the season was changing. My skin itched with the sting of new pin feathers, and I rolled miserably amongst the shed quills that littered my small nest by the fire. Nonetheless, I cherished the passage of time—the growing hope that I was _safe_ in this new place.

I grew stronger. Though still unable to break my bonds, I found the energy to sit up, to pay attention to things that fear and exhaustion had previously blinded me to.

There were certain noises, I noticed, that the two would make more often than others. Their language was more complicated than any I'd heard before, intricate and impenetrable in comparison to my own, but gradually I was able to draw connections between the sounds. Before long, I came to think of each of the two by the name-calls that they used for each other: the tall one, _Paa-pa_, and the small one, _Stee-na_.

There came a day when Paa-pa beckoned the small one to come closer to me. My neck prickled as I watched her approach, wondering if this, finally, would be the moment I had dreaded—turned into a plaything for a novice predator. But, as a new, tiny hand gingerly stroked the top of my crested head, my final trace of apprehension was finally soothed away. My eyes closed as an all-consuming relief washed over me, a purr rumbling in my throat as I let my chin rest against the girl-chick's little knee.

After that, the tall one removed the heavy vines from my ankles. I was able to roam the den, with its two small chambers; a single glance at the alien landscape beyond the wall-holes was sufficient to convince me that I had space enough inside.

Even if I had been able to find my way back out through that impossibly-straight-edged world, back to the cave mouth, back through the tunnel that would lead me home—to what would I have been returning? I had been alone for endless, hopeless seasons, hardly even able to recall my parents or nest-mates; I couldn't remember the last time I had dared to imagine building a family of my own.

The no-tails could hardly have looked any more different than me. But my feathers had begun to smell like them. They shared their food with me, and let me curl into their warmth as they sang together. With their music, they filled the aching emptiness that had made a hungry cave of my heart. When, one night, I surprised them by weaving my own lilting notes into their song, there was no mistaking their appreciation, their teeth bared in that unaccountable, contrary way that I had learned signified happiness for them; despite my every instinct, I felt the rise of my own lip.

We had just finished the night's music, on one particular winter evening. Paa-pa was tending to the string-wood, his fingers picking at the different complicated pieces. Stee-na sat on the floor, my head in her lap as she ran her fingers through my feathers, her voice nickering softly to me. And, suddenly, amongst the scattered silvery syllables I recognized a pattern that I had heard a dozen times before but never grasped the meaning of.

I lifted my head to meet her gaze, and her round, flat face split in happiness; as if in understanding, she once more voiced the sound that would fuse itself to me from that moment on, replacing my mother's long-forgotten chick-call:

_"__Eh-rrik."_


	7. Chapter 7

One more after this.

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7.

Time passed—I know not how much, only that I shed and gained feathers, while Stee-na grew taller and her father grew thinner. I lost track of the seasons at some point; in my new life, there was little that could have mattered less. Through winter, I was always sheltered, always warm, always fed. Spring came, and it no longer brought the futile restlessness that had once driven me nearly mad in my solitude.

One summer, we moved dens. Early in the morning, Paa-pa wrapped me in a cover of old dead-skin, the way he had done when he first found me; this time, I was grateful to be shielded from the loud and frightening world I had glimpsed through the wall-holes. When he eventually lifted the covering from my face, I found that we were in an even tinier den than before—one which shortly began to bump and rattle in a manner that I found most alarming, despite Stee-na pulling me soothingly into her own arms. The sun had nearly set again by the time the shaking ceased, and I was once more swathed, once more carried, once more set down somewhere new.

For the first time since I wandered through the jaws of the cave, I felt soil and grass and pine needles beneath my feet.

I glanced around in bewilderment as the skin was pulled from over me, noticing first Paa-pa and Stee-na, and then the small, moonlit clearing in which we stood. Behind them, I could see a shape that I recognized as another den: somewhat larger than the home we had left, its white front pierced with similar wall-holes. At the edges of the clearing, a dense forest rose up to block any further view—the trees different than the ones I remembered, but at the same time comfortingly familiar. In the undergrowth, I could hear the rustles of small creatures, though I did not recognize their scents. Overhead, there were stars. I stared in every direction at once, my body motionless but for the uncertain darting of my head.

Movement drew my focus back to Stee-na: she trotted a few steps, her long covering swishing around her legs, turning back to glance at me with my name-call on her lips. What choice had I but to follow? As I reached her side, though, she took off again—this time, faster; I stumbled after her on legs that had forgotten how to run. It was a joy that I was grateful to be reminded of: my tail plumes streamed out behind me, arm quills tucked against my sides as I finally began to gain on my companion. The chase continued until finally Stee-na sunk to the grass near her father's feet, petting my feathers as I slumped, panting, onto her lap.

It would take many days for the new den to begin to smell like us, but it offered a comfortable resting place that night. When they gave me my water, it tasted clean and pure. The next morning, the three of us explored the woods that ringed the clearing. Snuffling amongst the leaves, I discovered more similarities between this place and the one of my past; as I pounced upon a tiny-yet-unmistakable squeak-soft, examining the bald-tailed creature for a moment before dispatching it with the sharp press of a claw, I wondered if my new family had somehow brought me back to my same old home.

It's a question that I consider even now, as I walk through the trees at Stee-na's side, all this time later. A twig snaps somewhere in the distance, and my hackles rise, ready to die defending her from whatever tooth-killer might break its way through the bushes. So far, the worst we've faced have been the weird, branch-headed beasts that roam the woods, which bolt away at the smallest provocation; still, I know that she appreciates it when I snarl at them.

For many seasons, we had only each other.

Several winters after we came here, her father had begun to cough. He had been bothered by his throat before, but this time each breath brought with it the scent of fresh blood. Paa-pa died as I lay burrowed into his nest beside him, sharing my warmth, but unable to save him the way he had once saved me. Inconsolable, Stee-na hid the string-wood. When we sang after that, it had been with sorrow.

Now, though, the music has returned to our home, and I am no longer alone in protecting her.

She has brought a new no-tail into our den, into our family. Another male, this one near in age to herself, with sunlight-tinged plumes that match her own. The first time she led him here, the stranger and I stared at each other in apprehension. But then she retrieved the string-wood from beneath her nest and placed it in his hands. With her encouragement, he drew music from the old, cherished fall-wood, and I sang—none who has met Stee-na could ever deny her anything—and an understanding was reached.

I know that he will protect her when I'm gone.

I think about that coming day more and more, the creaking of my joints growing louder and more painful with each new morning. Sometimes on our walks, when my legs grow too tired to go any farther, Stee-na hoists me in her arms, and I think back on the days when she was a chick no bigger than me.

I am not sure what happens to a creature's mind after it dies—whether it returns to its first home, or remains tied to the place of its death, or simply ceases to be; once, I believed that I would spend eternity lost in the darkness of the underground.

If I could have a choice, I would remain here forever, with my family; sometimes, when Rraol makes the string-wood sing, I feel sure that I can sense Paa-pa's presence, and it gives me hope that I might be able to.


	8. Epilogue

AN: Thank you for reading. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

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Epilogue

My husband took me once to London, to the Crystal Palace. The great glass building shone in the rare, soft sun of the English summer, highlighting the many wonders laid out inside. We were there for a trade show, Raoul's brother having recently taken an interest in getting him into the family business. Neither of us were particularly inspired by the displayed wares, however, and we soon found ourselves strolling through the adjoining park.

A signpost touted an attraction just beyond a turn in the path—an outdoor exhibition of the "_INHABITANTS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD_". As we finally caught sight of the hulking concrete behemoths, their fat bellies dragging along the ground, the two of us shared a private smile.

I didn't know, when I was little, precisely what my dear Erik _was_. I doubt my papa could have conceived of it, either, that night that he discovered him.

We were living in a small flat in Paris, where Papa had taken a job in the construction of the new opera house. The excavating of such a vast foundation was dangerous, explosive work, and they were perpetually in need of men hungry enough to go down and light the fuses. After surviving that day's final detonation, Papa had heard an odd noise in the depths of the tunnel, and waded through the inches of stagnant groundwater to make sure that none of the riggers had been left behind. Instead of one of his fellow day-laborers, he had found a fissure into a natural cavern—in which was trapped an altogether _un_natural creature.

There were sideshows in those days, as there are now, run by men willing to pay a handsome price for a unique oddity to put on display. We were poor, and, though my father had little education outside of music, he knew well enough that birds do not generally have teeth, or claws upon their wing-joints.

Far more importantly, though, he could tell when a soul needed help.

I think he told the landlord that he had bought me a parrot. It was only our fortune that the dull man had never heard the squawking of such a bird, or else he would never have accepted our new 'pet's crooning for the same.

I can't recall exactly what Papa first said to _me_. For so long, we considered Erik to be a sort of immense, aberrant pheasant—an anomaly of a kind similar to the two-headed calves that draw so much attention at small country fairs; perhaps that was how Papa explained it to me then, too. I do know that he made it understood that I was _not_ to tell _anyone _about the new inhabitant of our hearth, or to go too near to him. Our new companion was clearly ill, he told me, and needed time to rest without my prodding. (Years would pass before it would dawn on me that Papa had, in truth, been afraid that Erik might lash out at me with his teeth or his vicious claws.)

It hadn't been the first time an injured visitor had been carried across our threshold. There had been cats, dogs, a rabbit, even the occasional pigeon. They were all released once they were healed. Yet, this one stayed, earning a name to match our own even as I'd never been allowed to name the others. A pigeon can find its own covey, but how do you release an animal that has no other place in the world?

Before long, neither of us could imagine _our_ world without Erik.

Papa had been saving up for some time, all in hopes of moving us back to Småland. While the landlord had fallen for our excuses, we knew we would never be able to convince a customs inspector. Our plans changed; our lives changed.

My path would have been very different if not for Erik—if not for the decision to move house to the cottage Papa found for us outside of the city. The small property lay on the outskirts of Chagny, and it didn't take long for the Comte to hear that a fiddle-player had taken up residence nearby. He sent for us, hoping to procure lessons for his youngest son. When I wasn't chasing voles through the woods with Erik, I was befriending the boy who, years later, would return from university to propose marriage to me.

Funnily enough, just as it was Erik who brought me to Raoul, it was my association with Raoul that led me to the full understanding of my beloved Erik.

The Comte saw to it that his children received the most current education possible, encompassing all the latest developments and discoveries of the natural sciences. It was while idly flipping through one of Raoul's schoolbooks one afternoon that I was thunderstruck by a lithograph of the creature they called the _urvogel_.

I attempted to memorize the page, too afraid that Raoul would become curious if I asked to take the book home with me.

It was quickly apparent that the animal of the fossil did not match up with the one that slept at my bedside. The urvogel was a puny, lanky thing, like a crow that had never managed to swallow a decent meal despite its mouthful of teeth; Erik, excepting his long tail, was at least as large as a good-sized goose, and a great deal heavier besides. The smaller animal also had more defined wings—and far less prominent claws. All told, it was a similar comparison to glancing between a house cat and a leopard.

But there were other books—other bones, belonging to larger prehistoric creatures. I learned a new word: _dinosaur_. The pictures were always wrong—sluggish beasts, their bald bodies painted in the tones of dirt and dead leaves—but I knew that I was right; I recognized the claws that had rid our kitchen of so many mice.

I'm not sure whether Papa believed me, when I finally came to him with my findings. After all, how could _anything_ have survived in a cave for so long, after all others of its species had been reduced to dust and stone? But he tilted his head thoughtfully, and told me a story—how one man on the explosives crew had claimed to have once found a live frog encased in a deposit of coal that he'd been blasting through. "Who knows, _Stina_," Papa had said, using his old nickname for me, "Who knows." Years later, after Papa and even Erik himself was gone, I would read about another team who had been engaged in cutting a railroad tunnel in Culmont, not far to the east, when they had discovered a creature that a local student would later identify as a prehistoric reptile—a "living fossil", somehow preserved through the millennia, only to expire before the astonished eyes of half a dozen bewildered Frenchmen.

I was the only one there when Erik died. After years of following me like a shadow, one morning he was unable to rise from his basket, only weakly lifting his head to look at me, like that first night Papa brought him home. And I _knew_.

I carried him out into the sunshine, and cradled him there till late into the afternoon. It didn't matter when I skipped cooking any lunch, knowing that I was the only one who would go hungry: Raoul was at the big house for the day, assisting his brother with some business.

I sang to Erik until he stopped breathing, and then I buried him at the corner of the cottage, wrapped in Papa's old leather coat.

Raoul held me that night as I cried, knowing that something irreplaceable had left us.

I still find the feathers sometimes, tucked under a carpet or wedged into the underside of a bookcase: a beautiful auburn-rust colour, with fine black banding. Except for a single quill that I keep in my Bible, I always burn them. The most unpracticed gaze would be able to tell that their filaments are too sparsely arranged to belong to any ordinary bird.

It is one of my dearest hopes that, one day, people will be able to know of the true, graceful beauty of the beasts that roamed this land before us, rather than the overstuffed iguanas of the Crystal Palace. But it is a discovery that they will have to make on their own. Knowledge belongs to the world, but I am the only one with any claim over my own family. Erik will stay here, in my garden, and his memory, I hope, will die with me.

Let them find some other skeleton to excavate and examine and display.


End file.
